If you want to emphasize the juxtaposition of geometric and organic patterns in a shot, you can do one of several things. Any random photo simply captures what we’re used to seeing every day. We might not necessarily notice that combination because we live in a world filled with natural and human-made stuff. This is the psychological power of organic patterns in photography.Īny photograph that includes natural and human-made things will entail a mix of geometric and organic patterns. Indeed, it feels mysterious, infinite, and mystical. These Eastern and Western explanations point to some underlying, hidden principle or force that organizes the illusive structure of the universe. Ancient Chinese philosophy talks about “Li” – the mysterious irregular patterns that we sense in flowing water, colorful autumn leaves, and the petals of a flower, but that we cannot exactly describe. The ancient Greeks described the Golden Ratio (also known as the Golden Section and Golden Mean), which continues to fascinate mathematicians as an elegant concept that seems to explain such naturally spirallying shapes as a nautilus shell. Modern mathematics attempts to define the patterns of nature in terms of fractals, which are the curious shapes that repeat themselves when viewed from a distance and when we zoom in on them for infinitely closer and closer views. So too when viewing photographs of nature, which no doubt is the reason why nature photography is so popular. Why we humans enjoy visiting oceans, forests, and mountains reveals the psychological impact of these organic patterns: we feel peaceful, calm, connected, and comforted in the presence of the graceful flow around us. Resisting the unconscious urge to inject geometry, artists have a hard time recreating organic patterns that truly look like they came from nature. They are mysteriously “curvilinear” forms, which similar to geometric patterns, go abstract when you shoot them very close up or very far away. Instead, the patterns in nature are irregular, uneven, asymmetrical, flowing, unpredictable, gentle, freeform, soft. Some people even say that nature hates straight lines. With a few important exceptions - like the circular shape of the sun setting behind clouds - you won’t see any pure geometric forms. Think about the shapes you see in nature (which is why they’re also called “natural” patterns): leaves, flowers, rocks, the patterns of waves in the ocean, the contours of landscapes, mountains, and shores. As in all types of photography, black-and-white and monochrome images in general tend to highlight shapes. If you shoot down along the surface, you’ll create a sensation of depth, with geometric patterns changing in shape as they recede into the distance, as if they might be growing, shrinking, or, in the case of shallow depth of field, slowly fading away and losing their precise form. To emphasize the strict geometry of these patterns, shoot straight on, at right angles to the surface, which often results in a flat image that accurately renders the symmetry of circles, rectangles, and triangles. In some photographs geometric patterns are clearly the components of some human-created object or environment – a bridge, shelves holding bottles, a circuit board - while in other cases the image goes completely abstract, as in extreme close-ups where all we see are geometric shapes without the identifiable context of the whole object or environment. Unexpected breaks in the repetition add rhythmic interest. When the progression of shapes is even and unchanging, it might seem relentless, overwhelming, or boring. Because geometric patterns often involve repetition - as in the windows of a skyscraper and the wheels of parked cars – we feel linearity, movement, and a sense of direction. They conjure up ideas about construction, civilization, and accomplishment. Most of the time we find geometric patterns in human-made things: buildings, tools, machines. People who embrace rationality, logic, and organization often feel drawn to such patterns. Geometric patterns therefore conjure up ideas about orderliness, formality, certainty, strictness, efficiency, predictability, accuracy, precision, and, thanks to Plato’s concept of Ideal Forms, the striving for perfection. You had to learn the very precise mathematical principles embedded in these shapes. To understand the psychological effect of these patterns, think back to geometry class during your school years. Geometric patterns tend to be symmetrical. Geometric patterns show us straight lines, circles, triangles, rectangles, and polygons, as well as variations and combinations of these shapes – such as squares, ellipses, cubes, cylinders, and pyramids. Some people say that abstract patterns are a third type, but I think they’re just a variation of geometric and organic shapes. I’d like to suggest that all patterns in a photograph fall into two basic categories: geometric and organic.
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